


an old familiar scent

by jonphaedrus



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Bad Decisions, Dubcon Kissing, Enemy Lovers, First Kiss, Inappropriate Use of Aetherology, M/M, Making Out, Pre-Relationship, Rough Kissing, Surprise Kissing, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 05:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19996603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: There is an Ascian in the Ocular.





	an old familiar scent

**Author's Note:**

> me, sitting in a ditch at the side of the road, waiting for anybody to come within arm's reach
> 
> and then thwacking them on the shin with a wrench labelled "doomed romance"
> 
> teyu neku for character read

There is an Ascian in the Ocular.

He stands, one hand pressed to his chin. “How curious,” he says in lieu of greeting. “Last I checked, the Crystal Tower remained planted securely upon the soil of Mor Dhona, and yet, here it stands. However did you do it?”

“Good afternoon,” the Exarch returns, and then adds, in the same tone as he was asked it: “Last I checked, the Crystal Tower was locked to those without an invitation, yet here you stand. However did you get in?”

“The door.” The Ascian smirks at him, barely visible under the base of his mask. “What, did you expect me to have teleported? The aether here is fascinating, and entirely unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. How humiliating would it be for me to be defeated by mistimed corporeality.” His bow is mocking.

“Please remove yourself from my Tower.”

The Ascian sucks his teeth and does not say anything, but the audible question of _your_ Tower? hangs unsaid in the air. “Now, is there any reason to be so sharp with me?”

“I know who and what you are, Ascian.”

“Oh, _what_ , indeed, I am certain. But _who_?” The Ascian presses his fingers to his chin again, smiling. “Pray forgive me, for I don’t believe we’ve met. I should like to know my opponent in this coming match. I am Emet-Selch.”

The Exarch has read the surviving records that made it back out of Garlemald. He is quite familiar with Emet-Selch, whose end came once before alongside that of Gaius Baelsar, taken down together in the early days of the 8th Umbral Era. “Of the Source, yes? I seem to remember Architect as your moniker.” The Exarch hesitates to name the face the Ascian wears at that moment as _impressed,_ but there is little other term for it. “You have brought yourself quite far from home. I had assumed the Ultima Weapon would be keeping your attention.”

Emet-Selch makes a most curious noise. “And now how do you know about that?”

The Exarch does not answer. “I have been of-late titled as the Crystal Exarch. I had expected upon my arrival to find myself facing down Mitron or Loghrif, not one as...exalted as yourself.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, although your curiously encyclopedic knowledge of our number likely _will_. I fear in my colleagues absence you and I are fated to play out juxtaposing roles, for you seem devoted to undoing this lovely Flood.”

“Hardly a strong basis for a friendship.”

“But an interesting one, no?” Emet-Selch shrugs, props one hand on his hip. “So let us see, then, how this plays out. You with your pieces, I with mine, and soon enough we shall see who emerges the victor.” It leaves an acidic taste on the back of the Exarch’s tongue, because he knows who won the last time, the first time. Emet-Selch is no small foe, and even if he _knows_ every move the Ascian will make—

“Certainly,” he agrees. “You with yours, I with mine, and the Eighth Umbral in the balance. I pray you will not be offended should I refrain from wishing you luck.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

Emet-Selch is a man of easy smiles and quick boredom, whose presence the Exarch grows used to in much the same way one does an ill-fitting seam. Most often, the Ascian comes to him in the guise of his order, a Paragon cloaked and hooded, letting himself in anywhere he so pleases, appearing and disappearing in flickering shadow. Just as often, he comes in the guise of a mortal, their body “borrowed” temporarily, although it is upon occasion a corpse. These visits are shorter, as if he is uncomfortable in this unaccustomed flesh, and he complains oft of the difficult vagaries of a temporary vessel.

Throughout the intervening decades, the Exarch learns little and less of his frequent visitor beyond those few things he deigns to share. He dangles morsels of the Source as if they are tempting, and for the sake of gaining some insight as to how the Ascian thinks, the Exarch bites, as if he is wholly unknown of their goings-on.

He grows almost fond of Emet-Selch’s gloating, whenever he gains a little more ground, unearths one more secret about the mysterious Crystal Exarch.

But he never takes the Exarch’s body, although he could very well try. He never tries to push his hood back, although they come near enough that it would be ease itself to pull it down. Emet-Selch walks the growing streets of the Crystarium in fascination, learning every tidbit and morsel he can about the elusive Keeper of the Tower—

And still it is not enough.

The first time Emet-Selch kisses him, it is with one hand buried in the collar of his robe, fingers knotted in the wool, the cool substance of his mask pressing into the tip of his nose. The kiss is open-mouthed, Emet-Selch bending to reach him and the Exarch, momentarily surprised, gasps into it—

Emet-Selch bites down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. The taste of copper is sharp and bright, and he makes a noise that is not so much _pain_ as it is _surprise_ , high in the back of his throat. Emet-Selch licks it away, tongue pressing to the roof of the Exarch’s mouth, and then he pulls back, as abruptly as he had kissed him in the first place.

Almost daintily, Emet-Selch wipes the blood from his lips. The Exarch wipes his hand across his broken lip, pushes his tongue to the cut. It feels swollen and raw to the touch, and he looks up at Emet-Selch, who is watching him with a curious expression upon his face.

“Pardon?” The Exarch says at last, voice cracking.

“I was quite curious, you must forgive me.” There is a slant to the Ascian’s lips, a half-tilted quirk to his mouth, as much coy as it is infuriating. “You still bleed as does any man, I see.”

“You could have _asked._ ”

“Ah, but would you have answered, dear Exarch? Somehow I doubt that such a question from an _enemy_ would be well-received. The spirit of science is inquiry, and you did not seem to mind.”

The Exarch—is not sure what he thinks.

He swipes his tongue over the break in his skin again, and says: “Ask first next time.”

( _Next time_ , they are standing together atop the new-built second story of the Crystarium, looking out over Lakeland, speaking of nothing. Emet-Selch leans over him, says, “I am asking.” Visible only to the Exarch, the Ascian half-smiles, reaches up and slides his mask to the level of his eyebrows. Without it, his face coalesces into a rounded jawline with a strong, pugnacious chin and hooked nose, the narrow, curved lips that the Exarch has grown so familiar with. There is an almost coeurl-like quality to the Ascian’s smiles, ever-present and mocking of the world at large.

A few strands of grey hair have escaped from beneath his hood, hang caught over his right eye, sticking to the bridge of his nose with sweat. His eyes are hooded, long-lashed and liquid gold, set beneath expressive brows. They are angled in such a way that they give him a look of continual disdain. His smile grows, softens, reaches the corners of his eyes, crinkling crows feet.

He should not be surprised to see Solus zos Galvus looking back at him, but he is.

The Exarch’s face is hidden from anyone who might be watching by the heavy line of his hood, and none at the Crystarium know who— _what—_ his occasional guest is, for none can see him should he not wish it. With Emet-Selch’s mask lifted, the Exarch takes hold of the base of his own hood to keep it over his face, and lifts his chin.

“You may,” he agrees. Emet-Selch pulls him closer once more by the collar of his robe, leans over him to correct for the disparity in their heights, kisses him.

The Exarch has never kissed anyone else before, so he has nothing to compare this to. If this is a good kiss, or a bad kiss, or a wet kiss. It is a kiss, and Emet-Selch leads him in it, directing him by the collar of his robe, dragging his teeth over the Exarch’s lower lip, his breath catching in his lungs when he opens his mouth into the coaxing. Emet-Selch bites at his lip again (gently, this time, and then harder when a noise the Exarch does not mean to make claws out against the back of his teeth, drawing blood he once more licks away), presses his tongue into the Exarch’s mouth, and he can feel the other man’s stubble, growing atop the curve of his chin, the softness of his lips, smell the scent of him—

He makes another noise, ragged and wet, curls his fingers into Emet-Selch’s chest, nails digging into the heavy cloth of his robe, and pulls him closer, pants into that open mouth in ways he did not know he either needed nor could ask for.

He kisses back, hard, copying, leans forward into it, and does not have the slightest protest.)

Beneath the cologne he wears as part of his mortal guise, Emet-Selch smells like leather and dust. Even more than that, he smells like something _other_ , not so much like the void or the rift but a little of decay and more of a scent the Exarch cannot name, cannot place, but he knows without knowing, the same way he does the scent of rot. It is _wrong_ , and he wants more of it.

It never lingers: it comes and goes with its bearer, as quick as he arrives and disappears, often all of the warning the Exarch sometimes has before Emet-Selch appears. Today, it fills his room and moments later there is the sound of the Rift, a low _gasp_ of air into nothing, and then pressure at his back where he sits writing.

The Exarch looks up to say something, but before he can even speak, Emet-Selch has straddled his lap, taken the Exarch’s face in his hands, and kissed him.

There are palms—warm even through leather—pressed to his face, clawed fingertips against his cheekbones. Supple, strong lips; evening stubble. Emet-Selch opens his mouth and the first brush of his tongue is like _lightning_ , surging and sparking through his tongue to his teeth to his eyes, to his hair, to his _mind_ down through his whole body to the soles of his feet. It just keeps going, this feeling of too-much hypersensitive drowning, completely overwhelmed. The Exarch makes a noise he does not intend to, a _begging_ sound, broken and high and ragged, all his skin suddenly too tight for his body, the crystal growing up his right arm thrumming as if a plucked string, claws at Emet-Selch’s hipbones through his robe, bucking up into that inexorable weight. He is too tall: sitting on the Exarch’s lap, he must crane his neck to return the kiss, leaves it aching.

Too tall, because the Exarch wants desperately for more, for another kiss. He does not know _why_ this kiss, what about it is doing this, for he feels alight, like floating. He moans, unbroken and _needy_ , crying out into Emet-Selch’s mouth, and the Ascian presses one hand to his chest to shove him back in his chair, his back thudding against the wood and his entire body drawn upward towards the kiss as if by a string.

Emet-Selch’s hood is falling, revealing the streak of grey in his hair, the dark purple at his part. His pale skin is hot-flushed with arousal, making the gold of his eyes even brighter. His mask is almost entirely askew, and he pushes it the rest of the way out of his face, revealing his third eye, kisses the Exarch again, panting, _harder_.

His whole body tightens, his heartbeat rapid in the hollow of his throat. Emet-Selch is licking the roof of his mouth and there’s more of that low, bone-shaking buzz rattling his thoughts into mist in the confines of his skull. There’s a taste in his mouth that’s honey but sweeter, brighter, more green and white than gold, leaving his tongue and lips and throat feeling numb and full and swollen and _wanting_ as he swallows the kiss that Emet-Selch gives him. Everything is too-vivid and too-sharp, the scrape of the cotton of his robe all but painful on his skin.

Every single nerve in his body is hypersensitive. When he begs “Please,” it’s not even asking for anything but more of whatever _this_ is, the saturated aether that he’s breathing, that Emet-Selch is biting into his aching lips. He— _needs_ —

“I brought you a surprise,” Emet-Selch whispers, teeth scraping over the Exarch’s lower lip when he speaks. He follows the teeth, biting back at Emet-Selch’s open mouth in an imitation, still pinned back against the chair and desperate for that touch. “Some aether from the Source, to give you a taste of home.”

That Emet-Selch crossed the Rift to give him this, not speaking to hold it in his mouth, is half of what spurs the Exarch to fist the front of his robe and jerk Emet-Selch back down, their teeth banging together unceremoniously, breaking the Exarch’s lip. The kiss tastes of blood and the lingering low boil of aether, the crash of waves against the roof of his mouth.

When Emet-Selch kisses him, hands cupping his cheeks, he never tries to push down the Exarch’s hood. He kisses like drowning; the inexorable pull of gravity tugging beneath the waves. “This,” he whispers, grinding down against the Exarch’s lap, and he can feel how hard the Ascian is, how hard he _himself_ is, so much it is painful in its intensity, “Is mine.”

In his mouth, Emet-Selch’s aether is—

The Exarch, were his eyes open, could not see. He cannot hear, the world and his knowledge of it narrowed completely to the points where their bodies meet. He is his own hardness, the pressure of Emet-Selch atop his lap, the touch on his face, his agonized scraped-raw fingers tugging vainly on the Ascian’s coat. His body, the memory of it he inhabits, the Crystal Tower it really is, the spaces where skin meet crystal burn like molten lava, cutting straight through the heart of him, piercing his bones.

The noise he tries to make tangles in the back of his throat and dies out into Emet-Selch’s lips. The Exarch can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can only—feel. He can only _feel_ , and he can feel so much, every individual hair on his head, the sandpaper underneath his eyelids. His bones feel tense fit to burst. His throat is so tight it’s closed. His muscles are trembling and his blood burns and he can breathe aether, taste aether, see aether, the tangible sensation of it and Emet-Selch atop his lap, brighter than the First's light-washed sky with how much of it he has, so bright to his vision the Exarch cannot call it anything less than looking into the sun.

He should not do this. 

But when Emet-Selch presses a thumb below his lip, atop the curve of his chin, pulls the Exarch’s mouth further open so that he can bite the tip of his tongue, draw blood and air both from his mouth, stealing his lungs empty—

The Exarch rocks up into him, and he’s never been touched not like this, had never before been kissed, but he _wants_.

One temptation will not a calamity make.

**Author's Note:**

> noahfronsenburg.carrd.co


End file.
